17 May

After landing in Amman at 12:30AM local time today, it's been the first day in the country. We settled into our apartments for the next two months, slept, got an orientation for life in Jordan at Qasid, and toured the city.

Cultural notes:

• Taxis are the primary mode of transportation. 2 JD (Jordanian Dinars) can get you anywhere in the city. When driving, Jordanians don't use addresses or streets, but navigate with landmarks. Oftentimes streets have an official name and a colloquial name. All this means it takes a lot of knowledge of the streets and locations in Amman to navigate anywhere or take a taxi.
• Hookah is more common than I thought. There's lounges/cafes devoted to smoking and old men playing cards. In a lot of restaurants, people also smoke. Sometimes on the street you can smell the flavored smoke.
• Since I look like an obvious foreigner, most strangers try to speak English with me, making it hard to practice Arabic at times (ex. ordering food), since they'll just revert to their English, which is better than my 3ammiyyah.

A random shot of a street. Reminds me of other Asian cities.

Our meal at al-Quds restaurant. The entire table was covered in food. The right picture is rice, Ouzi, with chicken and almonds on top. You can see hummus and tabbouleh too.

A view of the Roman Amphitheater from the bottom

A view from the top

A view from the remains of a Roman/Christian/Umayyad citadel